TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — Nearly 200,000 oysters are being moved further down the Hudson River before dredging begins this summer for the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

A three-man crew is spending the week pulling colonies of oysters into buckets and transferring them about a mile south towards Manhattan.

“There are oysters in the area where they’re going to dredge,” Brian Coneybeare , the governor’s special advisor to the Tappan Zee project, told WCBS 880’s Monica Miller. “We don’t want those oysters taken away with the dredging material that’s going to be disposed of, so we’re trying to get as many of those oysters out of there as we can and put them into a safer habitat.”